Major Lazer Question Drug Policy

As people with no connection or understanding of electronic music queued up to criticize a whole generation of young people in the aftermath of two tragically drug related deaths at New York’s Electric Zoo festival, it is nice to see amongst the tabloid hysteria several people involved in the scene making for more reasonable and balanced suggestions as how to tackle music’s apparent drug problem.

Firstly there was the excellently balanced and non judgmental piece placed online by U.S DJ and producer Brillz in which he suggested that we shouldn’t be casting moral aspersions on young people who take drugs but try to ensure that their safety rather than castigation is what takes paramount importance. This theme in which well-being rather than condemnation has now garnered further support from electronic outfit Major Lazer in a recent interview with Rolling Stone in which Diplo and Jillionaire hit back at US media coverage largely blaming EDM for the rise in drug abuse amongst young people citing citing America’s “conservative culture” is to blame rather than drug use.

Sharing his opinion on the matter Diplo began “We’re such a conservative culture that we’d rather not talk about the things kids want to do, even though they’re going to do them anyway. We’d rather ignore it to solve the problem.”

Before the Mad Decent boss added: “How many kids drive a car when they shouldn’t? The drug thing happens, and this is the first time music writers can have something to write about.”

In a similar opinion to that of former UK government drugs tsar Professor. David Nutt, Jillionaire believes a lack of drug education is biggest issue in the war on drugs today as the older generation of legislators simply refuse to engage in a reasonable debate on drugs policy much like they did with sex education decades ago saying: “It’s going to sound weird, but we need to teach kids how to do drugs, the same way we teach them about drinking responsibly and having safe sex.”

He continued: “Instead of acting like drugs don’t exist, acknowledge that drugs will be at a festival and address them.”

Sounds more sensible than ignoring the problem to us guys!